James W. Wood

James Wood was born in Scotland and educated in schools in Canada and the UK before studying English at Cambridge. While there, his first poetry pamphlet, Swingtime, was published with financial support from the university. Upon graduating, he was awarded a scholarship to work at his writing with 1992 Nobel Prize winner Derek Walcott. Since leaving North America for a second time, he has worked as a copywriter and media executive on four continents. He has reviewed for The Times Literary Supplement, Poetry Review, The London Magazine, The Daily Telegraph and others. His poems have appeared in the above journals and further anthologies such as Faber and Faber’s First Pressings (1998).

He is the author of three poetry pamphlets: Swingtime (Southside Press, 1991); The Theory of Everything (Happenstance, 2006), and Inextinguishable (Knucker press, 2008). His first full-length collection of poetry, The Anvil’s Prayer, was published by Ward Wood in 2013. Under the name of Craig Sterling, he is also the author of the action thriller Stealing Fire (Leamington Books, 2011) which was shortlisted for the book-to-film category at the 2011 Rome Film Festival. In 2018, he was the recipient of the British Columbia Writer’s Award in Canada.